


Reclamation

by battle_cat



Series: Together [49]
Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, F/M, Ficlet, Wasteland coping mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-29
Updated: 2016-01-29
Packaged: 2018-05-16 23:55:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5845888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/battle_cat/pseuds/battle_cat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She is not the kind to deal with fears through talking. But then, neither is he.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reclamation

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place right after [Red, Purple, White.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5478653)

It’s been another long day of working on the fire-blackened rig, trying to get it working again as fast as possible. They are both sweaty and sooty and tired, and neither one of them has to say that they will be rising with the sun and doing the same thing tomorrow, because it’s the only rig they have.

Toast should be doing the work, or at least doing it alongside them, but she didn’t leave the infirmary for the three days her badly-burned War Boy clung to life, and hasn’t much left her room in the two days since they amputated and he died anyway. Furiosa keeps saying she has one more day, but she keeps fixing her rig for her too.

He knows Furiosa was rattled by the attack on the convoy. If these raiders were brazen enough to try it, others will be too. She is tense, doing double and triple rounds of checking the Citadel’s defenses at night.

She seems to barely give a thought to the scratches on her neck, among the finger-shaped bruises that have gone from purple to yellow-green, except to clean them methodically each night, the way you might oil a gun on which your survival depends.

She doesn’t talk much. She is not the kind to deal with fears through talking. But then, neither is he.

Tonight he makes her sit down on the bench next to her worktable after they’ve wiped off the dirt and grease, so he can at least knead some of the tension out of her tired shoulders. She doesn’t ask—she never asks—but she lets him do it, and she makes soft appreciative moans in the back of her throat as he works out the knots under her shoulderblades, and then she leans back against him, letting his body heat do the rest of the soothing.

“Almost healed.” 

He brushes a finger against her neck and she startles, a reflexive twitch he curses himself for. “Sorry.”

“S’okay,” she mutters. A moment in which neither of them moves and he just enjoys the warm heavy weight of her against his chest, even if she is not quite as loose as she was before.

“Could you—?” She begins, then breaks off. Instead of speaking again she takes one of his hands and curls it around her throat.

He doesn’t squeeze, but still her pulse picks up beneath his fingers, instinctive tension coiling beneath her skin. He doesn’t move. His hand is big enough to wrap all the way around her neck, fingers against the hinge of her jaw, heat and breath and pounding pulse trapped beneath his palm.

She lets out a long shaky breath through half-parted lips. He can feel the fight thrumming in her limbs, feel her shaking with the effort of containing it. He hooks his other arm around her torso and a single, violent spasm escapes her, a reaction beyond her control. He would’ve gotten a hard elbow in the ribs if he didn’t have her arms pinned.

She is all vibrating power, an engine in overdrive, and she doesn’t ask him to do anything else so he just holds her and watches her downshift her own emergency responses, eyes closed with the effort, until she is not exactly calm but at least still in his arms.

She lets out one more long breath and reaches up to tap his arm and he releases her. She slides away from his touch. “S’nothing,” she mutters when she catches him watching her. “Fine now.”

She runs a hand up to knead at the muscles of his shoulder. “You could use some work, too," she says softly. “Lie down and I’ll do your back.”


End file.
